Editor’s Note: This article was updated on March 4 at 12:03 pm to reflect that Melanie Lengehan voted to uphold a vote removing Rebecca Nourse from the ballot.
MOUNT VERNON — Questions about conflict of interest arose after a board of elections member voted to uphold a vote removing her opponent from the May primary ballot.
Melanie Leneghan, of Powell, and Rebecca Nourse, of Howard, are running for the Republican State Central Committee for District 19.
Leneghan is a member of the Delaware County Board of Elections and currently has the central committee position.
On Feb. 24, Leneghan participated in a reconsideration hearing to determine whether Nourse should be on the ballot.
Leneghan, along with Republican board member Steve Cuckler, voted to remove Nourse from the ballot. Democrats Ed Helvey and Peg Watkins voted to certify her petition.
Watkins then made a motion to accept Nourse on the ballot. That vote also ended in a 2-2 tie along partisan lines.
Because the hearing ended in a tie vote, the case now goes to Secretary of State Frank LaRose to resolve.
“She is a sitting board member involved and an opponent. If she would not have been there and voted, I would be on the ballot,” Nourse told Knox Pages.
“Because she was there and chose to participate, even after being advised by the board’s legal counsel just a week prior not to, I’m not on the ballot yet.”
Leneghan said there is no conflict of interest because it is a party position.
“My vote has to be entered for there to be election integrity and for election law to be fulfilled, which is two Democrats, two Republicans,” she said.
The Delaware County Prosecutor’s Office and Delaware County elections board declined to comment on the case.
An error with the date
The case stems from Nourse incorrectly dating her petition to run for state central committee.
Nourse printed her petition off the Secretary of State’s website on Jan. 31. However, when completing the form, she dated it Feb. 4, the date petitions were due.
“You’re supposed to put the date that you actually pulled the petition, that you actually printed it or went to the BOE and got it,” Nourse said. “So I should have put Jan. 31.”
She submitted her petition to the Delaware County Board of Elections since Delaware is the most populous county in District 19 (Delaware, Knox, Coshocton, and Holmes).
Because the majority of the signatures were from Knox County, Delaware BOE sent the petition to Knox BOE to verify the signatures.
Knox County verified the signatures, and the Delaware board certified Nourse to the ballot on Feb. 10. Leneghan voted to certify Nourse’s petition.
However, after reviewing the signatures after certification, Delaware discovered there were only four valid signatures. Election law requires five valid signatures.
“Their director ended up taking a closer look at my ballot and noticed that I had six signatures prior to the date of Feb. 4, so those six signatures would become invalid,” Nourse explained.
On the advice of legal counsel, Nourse obtained affidavits from three of the six people stating she had signed the petition before they did. She presented them at a special meeting on Feb. 12.
At the Feb. 12 meeting, the Delaware Board of Elections voted 3-0 not to certify Nourse to the ballot. Leneghan was not present.
“I was asked not to be there, but I received bad legal counsel on that,” Leneghan said.
Substantial or strict compliance?
Nourse requested a reconsideration hearing, which took place on Feb. 24.
At issue is whether the Ohio Revised Code (ORC) requires substantial or strict compliance when filing petitions.
Nourse’s attorney, Curt Hartman, said the ORC requires substantial compliance.
Leneghan attended the Feb. 24 hearing and attempted to ask Nourse a question, according to draft minutes of the meeting.
Hartman objected on the basis that Leneghan’s presence was a clear conflict of interest.
Hartman said Leneghan should recuse herself because she is not only the current officeholder of the candidacy in question but also a candidate running for the office against Nourse.
The Ohio Secretary of State’s ethics policy states, “The intent of the ethics law is to prevent public officials from using their public positions to make or influence decisions that directly affect their personal interests.”
It also states, “Members or employees of the board of elections shall not participate in the consideration of any matter in which they have a personal or economic interest.”
Leneghan said,“When you’re a board of elections member, you’re allowed to be on state central committee and central committee. But you can’t run for any other office while you’re at the board because it would be a conflict.”
The draft minutes reflect that after open discussion, the board recessed to deliberate the case.
Upon returning to open session, Cuckler said he is strict and conservative when determining compliance issues regarding following form, laws, and directives.
Watkins stated Nourse was consistent with her testimony, that she believes signers were certain of the candidate’s identity, and that a scrivener’s error should not keep her from the ballot.
Board members then voted twice, with each vote resulting in a tie.
Secretary of State has 10 days to respond
Leneghan said she will participate in voting so that election law can be fulfilled and so the Delaware County Republican Party executive committee will not fire her for not participating.
“My job is to be there to protect the interests of Republicans. We can’t have Democrats having a majority vote on that. That blows election integrity right out of the water,” Leneghan said.
“It now goes to the Secretary of State, and he can decide. Which, honestly, is probably where it should have gone initially because of the situation and the circumstances. But the laws are very incomplete, and they just don’t address these things, sadly.”
The Delaware elections board has 14 days after a tie vote to submit information to the Secretary of State’s Office. The SOS has 10 days to render a decision.
Election boards must have UOCAVA (Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act) absentee ballots ready by March 20.
Nourse said her attorney is planning to file a complaint with the ethics commission.
